Fortress Hays

I haven’t used 67601.com much for a couple of months now, but I had recently made a post there for Easter. When I went back to check on that post today I was greeted with the disappointing news that Michael was shutting the site down, in what sounds like it will be a more permanent way than past hiatuses. Michael cited increasing legal threats and the burden of running the site and I can certainly understand his decision.

Although I can’t say I’ll miss much of the banter that made up the site’s day to day traffic, I do think that 67601.com served a noble purpose in giving ordinary citizens a place to publicly publish their thoughts and conduct conversations on matters of importance to the community. I would hope that those members who wish to continue to be heard and to continue the valuable conversations begun there consider starting blogs of their own, as I have here at Fortress Hays. Discussions in the blogosphere may lack some of the immediacy of a discussion board like 67601.com, but they can be a conduit for concerned citizens to speak publicly on matters of local importance. Many free and/or low cost hosted blogging services exist – I’d suggest Wordpress or Blogger, to name just two. If you do begin a blog with a local focus, please post a comment here with a pointer to your new site. I’ll try to aggregate a blogroll (in the right hand sidebar) of those who do so.

Thanks for all of your efforts over the years Michael. 67601.com will not be soon forgotten.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 2:30 am and is filed under Hays, Internet, democracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.